The first time Kirstyn Chun heard the word “gay” was in the mid-1980s when her mother was reading a newspaper article about the AIDS crisis.

To say it was a negative portrayal of gay men is an understatement, said Chun, a psychologist at Cal State Long Beach, who also works with the university’s LGBT Resource Center.

“The media reflected the general public’s sentiments that lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals — but especially gay men — were carriers of disease, people to be avoided, immoral, and possibly deserving of the horrible complications that accompanied advanced AIDS due to their lifestyle choices,” she said in an email.

Fear of the impending AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s loomed over the formative years of Generation X as much as the threat of a Russian atomic attack or the perceived crisis of Y2K.

Instead of the “free love” of the Baby Boomers that came before, many say the 46 million Americans born between 1965 and 1980 were left with paranoia about sex and the threat of AIDS.

“There were a lot of stereotypes, misinformation, and ignorance about LGBT communities as well as HIV/AIDS,” Chun said.

Could you get it from kissing? Hugging a gay person? Sitting on a toilet seat?

Rumors persisted in the initial years of the epidemic, with some in the religious community — notably evangelist Jerry Falwell — even linking AIDS to the so-called sin of homosexuality and “the society that tolerates homosexuals.”

A new disease

The first cases of this mysterious illness were reported in New York and Los Angeles in 1981; the first case in Long Beach was reported in 1983. At the time it was expressly linked to homosexuality and called GRID, gay-related immune deficiency.

A few years after the initial reported cases, researchers discovered AIDS is caused by HIV, human immunodeficiency virus infection. Since the first case, an estimated 78 million people worldwide have died of the disease, which is spread through contact with blood, according to the World Health Organization.

In the United States, more than 1.2 million people are HIV positive, and almost one in eight are unaware of their status, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 650,000 people with an AIDS diagnosis have died in this country.

Knowledge spreads

The cases of actor Rock Hudson, who died of the disease in 1985, and teenager Ryan White, who contracted the illness through blood contamination and was denied access to his middle school, spread knowledge and fear about the illness. Then, Magic Johnson, a beloved star on the Los Angeles Lakers, announced on Nov. 7, 1991, he was HIV positive and would retire.

Many sportswriters in the room cried at the news. Johnson, who eventually returned to the game, made it a mission to dispel myths about the disease.

“You can’t get AIDS from a hug or a handshake or a meal with a friend,” he said in a public service announcement in 2004 with fellow basketball star Yao Ming.

For many Gen Xers, knowledge about AIDS also came through television and movies, notably “Philadelphia,” Hollywood’s first mainstream movie in 1993 about the AIDS epidemic; and Pedro Zamora, an openly gay man on “The Real World: San Francisco.” The MTV show in 1994 explored in depth the reactions and fears that those living with the disease encounter. After Zamora’s death that year, he was praised by then-President Bill Clinton for his work in educating the public.

“It was a major part of my consciousness,” said Griselda Suarez, 38, a lecturer in CSULB’s Chicano and Latino studies program. “People were dying. I had a mentor, a teacher in high school, who passed away, but we didn’t talk about it. There was a lot of shame. I was heartbroken.”

It made such an impact that Suarez became a sex educator in college.

“AIDS changed our lives,” she said. “It changed everything, how we look at life, how we talk about it.”

Protesting for change

Given the public perception of the disease, and lack of government funding for medical research and treatment, gay activists took to the streets in cities across the nation and demanded action from government agencies and drug companies.

In 1990 a group called ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) protested at the National Institutes of Health, demanding more HIV treatments and the expansion of clinical trials to include more women and people of color. That same year, several groups protested the 6th International AIDS Conference in San Francisco over U.S. immigration policy that barred people with HIV from entering the country.

“It was a pivotal time because it changed so many lives, so many people died,” said Michael Buitron, 51, the outreach coordinator for St. Mary Medical Center’s CARE Program, the area’s largest and most comprehensive HIV/AIDS treatment and education program. “It brought more people into political activism.

“People saw all the terrible things happening and it motivated them to get involved. A lot of our motivation was from frustrations and anger,” he said. “We were being ignored and we were dying. If you didn’t advocate for yourself, nobody would. We didn’t have people rallying around us,” he said.

“We wanted action from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and drug companies,” Buitron said. “We didn’t have allies in those places.”

‘Viral apartheid’

The antiretroviral therapies that improved the prognosis of AIDS patients in the 1990s have not reduced the stigma associated with disease, which has existed since the first cases was reported, Buitron said. Many people who are HIV positive are ostracized, rejected by family and friends and discriminated against.

Buitron calls it “viral apartheid.”

“Some people who want to remain HIV negative avoid HIV be avoiding people who are HIV positive, but closing off people doesn’t work because the risk is with the people are HIV positive but not on meds or who have not been tested,” he said.

“It also creates problems because you become disassociated from a large part of the community, which can create stigma and feelings of isolation for people who are positive.”

Buitron said he doesn’t see much advancement down the road.

“We’ve come so far in gay rights because people are out to their family and friends, who are accepting. But you don’t have any motivation for someone to come out of the HIV closet. There is so much discrimination,” he said.

“I don’t see things falling into place that need to happen with HIV before it becomes accepted and normalized.”